Sunrun Brings Brightbox Home Solar Batteries, Virtual Power Plant To Vermont
August 29, 2019 -- With families across the country enduring a rising number of power outages, Sunrun Inc. announced recently (8/28) it is bringing its Brightbox home solar and battery service to customers in Vermont.
Starting this month, Vermont households can get Sunrun's solar-powered home battery, Brightbox, from as little as zero dollars down and at a low monthly rate. Brightbox customers in Vermont will also have an opportunity to enroll with Sunrun in Green Mountain Power's (GMP) bring-your-own-device (BYOD) battery program, which is designed to harness the power of home batteries across the state to provide clean energy to the electricity system - cutting power plant pollution and saving money for consumers in Vermont.
'Vermont is showing the way towards a cleaner, more people-powered energy system with home solar and batteries. We are excited to bring our Brightbox home battery service to the state,' said Lynn Jurich, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Sunrun. 'Green Mountain Power has long been a leader in the transition to clean, renewable energy. Together, we will bring the full benefits of home batteries to residents across Vermont - providing resilient back-up electricity to customers, reducing the need for dirty power plants, and building a more affordable energy system.'
Clean energy generated from rooftop solar panels is stored in Sunrun's Brightbox battery throughout the day. When the grid goes down and there is an outage, Brightbox provides backup electricity to the customer's home. This is a critical service for Vermont residents who face the longest blackout times compared to every other state besides Montana.
For a typical customer, Brightbox can provide approximately 8 to 12 hours of backup electricity, helping residents power through the night until the following morning when the sun rises and recharges the battery. Brightbox will power four essential circuits of a customer's choosing in their home. For example, circuits that many customers choose to backup include the garage door, kitchen, WiFi internet, and lighting.
Sunrun's partnership with Green Mountain Power will expand the reach of its residential battery programs that operate as 'virtual power plants' and increase the use of local clean energy in Vermont. In this program, GMP and Sunrun have worked together to identify new ways to expand how batteries support customers and the overall energy system. Sunrun will also aggregate and manage the energy of all enrolled Brightbox home solar and battery systems, providing additional value to customers. Sunrun will optimize when solar power is consumed by homeowners to maximize carbon emission reductions, and over the course of the program will continue to identify new ways for Brightbox to increase resiliency and reduce costs for the entire energy grid.
GMP has had success leveraging batteries as a source of clean, affordable energy. During a heatwave in July 2017, GMP was able to save its customers $500,000 in just one hour by using the electricity from its hundreds of local batteries instead of drawing power from fossil fuels like oil and gas.
Home battery programs are growing in popularity as utilities increasingly see the value and resilience afforded to the electricity system by residential solar and battery storage, particularly as an alternative to running 'peaker' plants that burn fossil fuels for electricity. Nearly all the states across the Northeast have either proposed or are currently implementing similar types of programs.
By introducing Brightbox into Vermont, Sunrun now offers its Brightbox service in nine states and Puerto Rico.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Also of Interest from SGO:
10th Microgrid Global Innovation Forum, September 10-12, 2019, London
6th Demand Response & DER World Forum, October 16-17, 2019, San Diego
3rd CyberSecurity International Symposium, November 4-5, 2019, Chicago
4th Smart Cities International Symposium, January 21-23, 2020, Chicago
Customer comments
No comments were found for Sunrun Brings Brightbox Home Solar Batteries, Virtual Power Plant To Vermont. Be the first to comment!